Nipsey Hussle

“It's important to love in hip hop.”

“I'm touring the world, not doing nothing against the law, getting money to feed my family. I got employees that have felonies, and they can't get jobs. They work for me.”

“I realized the power of hip-hop. I realized how influential this music and this culture are.”

“You're not going to scare me into being somebody I don't want to be.”

“Material things ain't nothing. You feel me? At the end of the day, it's who you is. You wasn't born with it; you gon' die without it.”

“I really am a fan of Ye's music.”

“My life is real.”

“At the core, one of my original goals is to redefine what the streets expect.”

“I think Ye is important to hip-hop.”

“I was never ignorant, as far as being experienced in classrooms and learning about different subjects and actually soaking it up, so I checked into college for a little bit. I took classes at a community college in West L.A. I took psychology, English, and philosophy.”

“Snoop ain't never cosigned me, but I know everybody is like, 'That's the next Snoop.' Nah, I'm Nipsey, and I got to work to define myself.”

“I think that every artist - or anybody that's in business - could benefit from a direct-to-consumer strategy, so I think that that applies to us as artists and content creators, too.”

“I actually met The Game in my hood on Crenshaw and Slauson. I was outside on the block with 20 of my homies. I see the Range Rover, and we all walked up to his car. I handed him my CD.”

“You've got to have faith in what you're doing and not take no for an answer.”

“When you say 'follow me on Twitter,' and you get 10 million people to follow you - you just leveraged your influence to add value to an app that you have no ownership in.”

“L.A. hip-hop is so different; it's so diverse. Out here, it's, like, funk-inspired; it's, like, '70s-skating-rink-inspired at times. It's Zapp-and-Roger-inspired; it's house-party-era-inspired.”

“As an artist, as a brand, as a rapper, as a musician, you know you got a window and a lot of people, even an athlete; they don't have no exit strategy. It's just living in the false reality that it's going to be like this forever.”

“The artist part of me always wants to be appreciated. I read every review. But I never wanted to seek validation by awards or anything controlled by politics.”

“I went through every emotion with tryna pursue what I'm doing, you know what I mean? And I think what's gon' separate whoever's gon go for something, that you ain't gon' quit.”

“I'm at peace with what I'm doing, I feel good with what I wake up doing and about my lifestyle.”